


Lie or Abstain

by kabeswaters



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Kind of cliche, Truth or Dare, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-24 17:20:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17104862
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kabeswaters/pseuds/kabeswaters
Summary: During a game of truth or dare, your first kiss with Remus occurs.  After you deny having enjoyed the kiss, Remus begins seeking out new relationships in unsuccessful attempts to get over you.  But maybe he didn’t have to get over you after all.





	Lie or Abstain

The party was in full swing: music was blaring from someone’s nearly-toppled-over record player, empty glass bottles littered the floor, the Firewhiskey they once contained thick in the veins of dancing and laughing bodies. Everything was so loud, the conversations, songs, chants of “chug, chug, chug,” that your ears were pounding deeply into the center of your skull. This sensation was only intensified by the few glasses of alcohol Sirius suggested you drink, with eyes full of a heavy plead you couldn’t resist, that were now causing a buzz to run up and down your skin and made your head feel like a heartbeat.

“Hey, Y/N, there you are!” James shouted. His hair was even more lopsided than usual; or, maybe, it was the full bottle of alcohol in his right hand that was weighing down his intoxicated body towards one side. “The guys and Lily and I are going up to our dorm. It’s too loud in here. And you’re coming, too.”

Without giving you time to respond, James had his free arm wrapped around your shoulders, beginning to guide you to the dorms. But with his stumbling and swaying from side to side, you began leading him instead. Unsurprisingly, his flannel-clad body reeked of alcohol’s heavy and unpleasant scent, the slur of it weighing down his voice. It was still just as buoyant, bouncing from wall to wall in the staircase as he mentioned obvious things: “These stairs are steep,” “you have a nose,” “I think I might be a little wasted.” You laughed at his comments as you knocked on his dorm door with the toe of your shoe. 

“Guys! Are you in there?” you screamed. It felt louder than it sounded, but soon James was chiming in, too, so it only took moments before the door swung open.

It was Remus who answered, still mid-conversation with someone, turning his head slowly towards you and James. Upon seeing you, his mouth stopped moving to speak, instead peaking up into a smile. 

“Finally,” he breathed, still grinning. It was unfairly bright in the dimly-lit hallway. “Took you long enough.”

You were about to respond about the extra weight of an unruly James, how it made every step take twice as long as necessary, but James screamed before you could outdo Remus’ sarcasm. “Moony!” he wailed, somehow finding the ability to stand up, just to fall into Remus’ body headfirst. “Moony, my old pal! My perfect little bookworm friend! Moony!” He kept on like this, requiring Remus to use his entire body weight to pull James up from his chest.

“Come on, we’re going inside,” he said gently. “And maybe you should let Y/N take your Firewhiskey bottle for you? Just so it doesn’t get smashed, of course.” The sly wink Remus gave your way usher you to play along.

“I’ll take great care of it, promise,” you affirmed. So, with a great reluctance, James was pulled into the dorm room, and with an even greater reluctance, handed you the bottle. Still slightly woozy, you nearly dropped it, causing Remus to smirk at you teasingly. You wanted to smack him on the top of the head with it, watch him get soaked in Firewhiskey. But, you figured the glass would be a hazard and James would throw you out the open window—which brought in a lovely breeze and the chirps of crickets—so settled for sitting down next to Lily on the floor in a slowly-forming circle.

She turned to you automatically. “Please help me convince Peter that playing spin the bottle is far too immature for a group of seventh years, especially when that group includes both Heads of House.” Though it was said as a request, it was more of a demand, and the remaining alcohol inside of you made you laugh at her concern.

“What do you want to play, instead?” you asked her. 

She shrugged, a sinful smile on her lips that contradicted her reputation in every way. “Truth or dare, naturally.” 

Sirius approached, drinking something that looked blended and fruity and far too elegant for the party of hazards and dark-corner make out sessions that was happening downstairs. He sipped it elegantly, too. “The argument,” he said, holding his pointer finger up, most likely to restrict Peter’s open mouth from speaking, “is not if we should play truth or dare or not, it’s how that is a more mature game than spin the bottle.”

“Because kids play that at the first parties they go to,” Lily argued. “Truth or dare requires honesty, also, which is something spin the bottle doesn’t.”

“It does when people ask who the best kiss was,” Remus coyly responded, sitting down on your left. You could feel the smirk on his face, playful and dangerous, even though you were staring at Lily’s annoyed expression. “Plus, the circle is already forming.” Lily stuck her tongue out at him, and he laughed, and you could feel that, too, shaking the floor like a heavenly earthquake. “But, I do agree. Just because truth or dare is always more eventful, since it’s not just kissing. It could be anything.”

“So, Moony, truth or dare?” Sirius asked. He was stirring his drink, waiting, anxiously.

“Dare, of course,” Remus replied. The Marauder really came out in him in these kinds of situations, glass of alcohol in hand, even more streaming through his blood. 

Sirius took a sip, purely for the drama of it, you were certain. “So,” he gulped down, “just because you chose this game to avoid kissing, I dare you to kiss Y/N. For one minute.”

James was the first one to explode with laughter, like some bursting fire hydrant, and it was expected from the common knowledge he was the drunkest person not only in the dorm, but in all of Hogwarts. There was laughter from Lily, an “ooooh,” from Peter, and nothing but the same devilish smirk from Sirius. Then, you turned to Remus, whose determined gaze contradicted with the burning pink of his cheeks. But there was also a softness in his eyes, which seemed to ask for permission wordlessly (as if you had a choice). In reassurance you smiled. 

And then he was moving into you. It felt fast but was slower in reality, as he gave Sirius a quick wink before leaning into your suddenly-stiff skeleton, nervous but sleeping with anticipation. Because you had been staring at those lips—plump and pink and scarred so beautiful—for years, imagining the way they’d move against yours, if it would be hasty and enthusiastic or slow or tender or burning and wild. And you were about to kiss them, and find out, and then you were kissing him, and discovering his mouth.

You were kissing him. 

The first thought you had was that Firewhiskey was no match for Remus’ lips, what they did to your skin, stomach, heartbeat. The rest of the world crumbled away at the first touch of skin against skin and you were gone—entirely, terrifyingly, gloriously—in the coaxing of his tongue, the nibbling of your lip by his teeth. 

The second thought you had was that one minute was not long enough to kiss Remus Lupin. It was Sirius’ silken voice that called, “time!” and he pulled away, equally as breathless as you. Your skin was on fire and you wanted to explode, explode like a dying sun because that was a kiss good enough to kill.

Remus was breathing heavily. You could see his chest rising and falling under the maliciously thin material of his white t-shirt, which you realized you had grabbed at some second of that one minute, as sharp peaks of fabric were pulled out around his stomach. He didn’t wait for his breath to settle before saying, “Y/N, truth or dare.”

“Truth.” It was a thoughtless decision, considering you could barely speak the one word, so how were you supposed to say an entire sentence?

His eyes were wide. “How was it?”

Warm in both tenderness and intoxication at the same time, making my stomach feel set ablaze. Sly and playful and accidentally dangerous, just like you. Dizzying. Breathless. Perfect. 

“It was good,” you replied, obvious gulp letting the dishonesty of your answer show only slightly. Only if someone saw. “Good coming from someone I’m best friends with, you know, that doesn’t have that, uh…”

You saw the heads tilting around you, but the word was as obnoxiously far away from your mouth as Remus’ lips were. So you stuttered, faltered, filtered in words, until Lily came to the rescue. “That heat?” she suggested, shrug heavy in her shoulders.

“Exactly.” You looked at her and smiled, hoping the action would hide the lie. Even looking at her when Remus agreed heartily, glad he couldn’t see the frown forming on your lips. “So, Lily,” you said, changing topics as quickly as possible, “truth or dare?”

You knew she would choose dare and she did, and so did Sirius and Peter and Remus and James and Lily and you were the the only one of the night to chose truth at all. It began to collapse after a couple of hours when Sirius got too drunk to talk and Peter began spontaneously falling asleep against whichever person he was closest to. James was already in deep sleep when you left, the alcohol buzz faded but the goosebumps from kissing Remus fully-fledged, supporting Lily’s weight upon your body as you trudged down the staircase. You tucked her in carefully before slipping into your own sheets, falling asleep to your mind’s replaying of Remus’ frame falling into yours, lips against lips, heart fluttering wildly. In dreams the same night occured; James pulled you up to the dorm, Remus opening the door, Lily demanding to play truth or dare, you and Remus kissing. But this time, you told him the truth, that was the best kiss you ever could have had because it was with him, and Remus’ cheeks turned red yet again in admission that he felt the same.

It was breakfast that clarified that admission was only something that could come out of a dream. Remus approached the table with an usual height to his stance, saunter in his step, and before you could ask Sirius was spewing out that out in the corridor, Remus had asked out a Ravenclaw you had vaguely heard of. 

“He’s got loads of other dates lined up this week, too,” Sirius announced, puffing up his chest as if it was he that had the unnecessary onslaught of women. “It’s part of my vision you see. Sirius’ Speed Dating Services.” He punctuated each word with a flip of his hand. “Moony finally realized he is desperately missing that special someone, so I am helping him find her. Really, it’s all thanks to you, Y/N. Your kiss last night proved to Moons he’s finally ready to buckle down and find his true love.”

You couldn’t help the snarky comment from leaving your throat. “And dating people who have no solid foundation with is the way to do that?” you asked. 

“Muggles do it all the time,” Lily replied through bites of sausage. It was unfairly casual and skewed in favor of Remus falling in love with anyone other than you. “And,” she added, “they make television shows out of it. They’re called The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. My mum’s absolutely obsessed.”

“Just because people do stuff doesn’t justify they should be doing it,” you argued, hating the way it came out whiny and desperate. Hating the way you couldn’t look at Remus, despite the need to hide the reason behind your annoyance.

Sirius’ fork dropped, banging against the table. “Hey, hey. Are you insulting my new business? It’s going to be a huge success! I can even set you up, if you want.”

You scoffed before saying, with all the mock politeness your body could muster, “no thanks, Sirius.” He shrugged it off like everything else, but at least had the decency to change subjects to how wonderfully the spring sunlight highlighted Snapes’ greasy hair after twisting your heart and snapping its muscle. Of course, it wasn’t a decency he knew he was lacking: even Lily, who you shared your hopes and dreams and fears with late at night, lacked the knowledge of your feelings towards Remus. Still, the food on your plate was ignored after that, except for the occasional moving around by an unlifted fork, appetite for everything except Remus lost. 

Yet, you never did anything to feed that desire. In fact, you did the opposite, beginning to avoid Remus entirely out of an anger that, while was entirely genuine, was shrouded under a mirage of carefully-constructed lies. The closest hint of a true jealousy appeared when Remus was late to your regular Wednesday evening study date after having a picnic dinner with some Ravenclaw girl you had heard of indistinctly, but you covered it up with a dramatic monologue on how friendship should not be ignored in the interests of romance. He agreed and promised to make it up to you. You knew it wouldn’t be in the way you wanted, so, immaturely, you decided the best course of action was to ignore him completely.

It was less than a day before Lily stormed into your dorm room with the chaos of a tornado and annoyance thick in her voice. “Here,” she said, handing you a piece of paper, folded in half, which had your name written on it in Remus’ distinctly messy half-cursive handwriting. “You have been cooped up here for like, what, eight hours? So, for eight hours, all Remus has been doing has been asking me if you’re mad at him.” She breathed deeply before continuing, “I don’t blame you, I’m not angry, but I just might hit him if this continues.”

Too engrossed in Remus’ note, you couldn’t respond back with more than a simple nod. There were only a few lines, but the writing was abysmal, so it took a minute to realize his note was begging you to meet him in his dorm to discuss something urgent enough for the word to be written in capital letters with three underlines beneath it.

“Sounds like I’ve got your solution,” you told Lily. “Remus needs to talk to me about something, apparently. So I’m off.”

You sprang off of your bed to retrieve a pair of shoes while Lily asked, “so you’re really just going to stop ignoring him because of a letter?”

Your shoulders shrugged. “I mean, this sounds important. He wouldn’t bother you over nothing.” Even though your shoes had laces, you slipped into them uncomfortably, uncaring that the haste was evidence of your desire to see him. 

And Lily saw it then, with that simple action, because her tone switched from inquisitive to suggestive as she said, “Yeah. I’m sure he wouldn’t.” There was a smirk on her lips you didn’t care to inquire about as you left quickly, unwilling to waste time to cover up a secret already out in the open.

Regardless of the true length, the walk to the Gryffindor boy’s tower was not long enough for your spinning mind to cease it’s constant questioning and concerns; you were in front of his door, looking down at your shoes before even one of your theories on why Remus would want to see you could be adequately explored. All you knew from the pounding of your heart was that you wanted to see him, too. But you needed no instinctual reminder to know that.

Out of the same kind of politeness with which Remus sent a letter beckoning you here, you knocked on his door upon arrival: five taps, no space in between. Automatically his voice rang through the cracks in the doorframe, yelling, “come in,” and you did, brows scrunched and lips pursed, wondering if you were the only guest he was expecting, as he didn’t even check to see who it was.

Remus only needed to see the look on your face—an actual question never rose from your throat—to clarify, simply, not understanding the sweetness of the words, “I know your knock, Y/N. Five taps, no breaks.” With similar familiarity he lead you to his bed, on which you sat, looking up at his tall frame, reluctant to join you even though you had invited him to several times. 

He was known for his words, whether being well chosen ones for perfectly-marked essays or sugar-sweet ones that got the Marauders out of detentions they definitely deserved. So, as Remus bit his lip and began rambling with one hand in his jeans pocket, the other on the nape of his neck, you felt as if you were speaking to someone you had never met before. “So, uh, basically, Y/N, I called you up here because… because well, I noticed you’ve been ignoring me. And of course I was wondering why. Because we’re best friends. You called me that after we kissed, and I definitely agree that you are the person I’m closest to, except for the lads, but you know me in a different way, y’know? And, everyone says that it’s typical for people to have multiple best friends so, basically, if you’re one of mine— since you’re one of mine, I have to ask, why are you ignoring me?”

The moment he looked up at you, you looked away, staring at the side of the wall as if panels of wood could ever hold a candle to Remus’ freckled cheekbones. “It’s barely been a day, Remus,” you said, acting annoyed but reveling in the truth of it. “How do you know I’ve been ignoring you? Like, I could be busy. Maybe Sirius set me up.”

It was cruel and you knew it, a low blow you couldn’t help but make. But what was even crueler was how looked back at him in hopes he’d show anguish, how your heart soared at the small dip Remus’ expression took from concern to sadness, before he quickly covered it up with a lighthearted chuckle. “And what exactly have you been busy doing?” he asked, eyebrow cocked, tone shifted.

“Homework,” you replied dryly. “Since someone skipped out on our weekly study date to snog a random girl.”

Remus smiled in that small, guilty way. “I’m sorry. The snogging wasn’t awful, but rest assured the rest of it was. All of the dates went pretty awfully. It was probably my fault.” 

The scoff that left your throat was louder than anticipated, but you liked how it startled Remus slightly. “How could that be? You could get along with a leaf.” Your comment made Remus laugh and it was throaty and full and head-tilted-back and made your body feel as though it was full of hot Butterbeer, warm and snug. “I’m not kidding!” You weren’t sure where the jealousy went, the hot anger that had consumed you but moments previously. Yet there you were, reassuring him in a way that felt so genuine that you knew you were born to be the shoulders he cried on. You wished he could say the same.

When the laughter died, the funeral for it was bleak: Remus resumed his initial posture of uncertainty while the air stiffened. It was a faithful leap of logic, alongside a selfish one, but you were hoping that because you were the guest, Remus would continue onto the next conversation topic. And he did, after a long pause and gulping of his throat. “Listen. There’s a real reason none of those dates worked out, the real reason I called you here—because I can survive a day without you, thank you very much—which is that I wanted to tell you that I have feelings for you. That kiss that night, that was all Sirius trying to set something up. But, obviously, you didn’t feel the same way, so uh…” he trailed off a bit then, as if the pain took over his body and stole the words right out of his throat. In a combination of shock and respect you continued sitting, wanting to let him finish, hear the whole story. “So of course you know what he did next. It was all to try and diverge my mind from you, make me see that there are other options. It didn’t work, though. I can’t keep kissing strangers and pretending that they’re you. I still remember how you taste, you see, and none of those other girls compared. So, in short, this was all a big hoax and I like you. Enough to create big hoaxes and all.”

After giving him some time to breathe and some time for your legs to stop shaking in shock, you stood up, causing Remus to drop his hands in front of his body in confusion and you took them in yours. They were calloused and warm. “I like you, too,” you said. It felt both like a whisper and a scream, was delivered in a volume somewhat in between the two. “Enough to lie about being mad about Sirius’ stupid plan and you skipping our study date just because I was jealous of those other girls and enough to lie about not loving kissing you because I was afraid you wouldn’t feel the same.” Your heartbeat was pounding in your ears, wild and deep, and you wondered if Remus could hear it. Wondered if his felt the same, like a drum being played with no rhythm, just ferocity.

Out of nowhere Remus began laughing, and though it’s beauty challenged that of a songbird’s whistle, it still caused you to glance upon him with confusion. Once again, he answered your question before it was asked: “I just can’t believe Sirius’ stupid idea actually worked out.” Remus’ laughter quieted down slightly as he confessed, “I’m also so ridiculously happy I don’t know what else to do with myself.”

“You could kiss me.”

You didn’t even say it; the words more-so spilled out of your mouth, your mouth that was suddenly flush against Remus’ faster than you could comprehend. You could feel the smile on his lips. It made your skin sing, the gentle heat of it, and this was the best thing the world had to offer, you decided. Kissing Remus Lupin was the pinnacle of luxury and you were currently submerged in splendor.

The feeling was grand but act not as grandiose: the kiss ended the way it began, with laughter—but extremely more breathless this time—bubbling out of you and Remus alike. Your hands had subconsciously found their way to his shirt again, which you once again did not notice until releasing them from the thick material of his jumper. His were around your waist and you were thankful that they stayed there, looping lazily around your frame. 

“Why are you laughing?” Remus asked, looking down at you, eyes full of a happiness you had never seen so starkly. “I explained myself.”

In some silent impulse you found yourself sinking into Remus’ chest. “Because you had your plot to get my attention and I had my plot to get yours and it’s just so funny how simple this all was in the end.”

He rested his chin atop your head. So, when he snickered, you felt it slightly, but were too comfortable to care. Finally in his arms, everything else faded into the background. “It all just comes down to the truth, doesn’t it?” he asked. 

“Yeah,” you smiled. “But we kind of needed the dare, too.”

**Author's Note:**

> This was requested by @theboywhocriedlupin on Tumblr. Find me there under the same name @madforscamander


End file.
